


Paradise

by OllyJay



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Flashfic challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 16:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14169132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OllyJay/pseuds/OllyJay
Summary: Miss Fisher oversteps a boundary and has to make up lost ground.





	Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> My chosen prompt was brilliant, orange and sweat.

Jack gazed out across the brilliant blue sea, it was beautiful and he felt almost poetic, so much so he decided that the sea was in fact azure. Azure water lapping against fine white sand on a deserted beach… and not a dead body in sight. Just what the doctor ordered, he thought as he placed his towel down on the warm sand and lay face down. A man could get used to this, he decided as the warmth soaked into his bones from both the sand below him and the sun above. He closed his eyes and let the sound of the water lull him into a sleep-like state, it felt as though he would never be cold again. It. Was. Heaven.

Twenty minutes later he turned over. It was a lot of effort but, as he relaxed back on his towel, it proved to be worth it. The sun on his face was delightful. He smiled. He had seen a bar further up the beach, he wondered if they needed any staff. It was never too late to pick up extra skills and Spanish didn’t seem that hard a language. Surely the mornings spent here at the beach would make up for the occasional need to manhandle late night drunks. After all, that didn’t really sound too different from what he did in Melbourne but without the luxury of spending time in paradise. He filed the thought away for consideration later, maybe over drinks with the attractive blonde who seemed to run the establishment.

He opened one eye and turned his head to look up the beach, still deserted. Nice. He closed his eye. It was probably time to go for a swim and then he could perhaps wander into town to find something to eat, possibly another book - but first things first. He rolled onto his side and sat up, knees bent looking out once more across the seemingly endless blue water. It was inviting and he understood that sharks and jellyfish were unheard of out here. Again with the paradise. Rising to his feet, he stretched his arms above his head before strolling into the water, marvelling at the fact that even that was warm, not so warm that it wasn’t refreshing but none of the chill that he had anticipated. He floated onto his back and let the gentle waves rock him. He better find a book on making cocktails, there was definitely no way he was going back to being a policeman.

“Inspector Robinson?”

No, Jack thought, there is no one of that name here. You have confused me with someone else, some poor bastard who has to get up in the early hours of the morning and work late into the evenings, no matter what the weather, no matter what day of the week it is. I am not that man. I am the bartender at the local bar where I serve fantastic alcoholic concoctions to beautiful women who flirt, and occasionally have their wicked way with me. Yes, you - whoever you are - are right to be incredibly envious.

“Inspector?” The poor man tried again, a hint of desperation entering his voice.

Jack focussed on keeping his stomach tight so that he remained floating. Eventually he assumed the man would realise he had made a mistake and leave him alone.

“Jack?”

Bugger! That voice was unmistakable and not one that you could ignore. Well, you could but experience told him it would only make her more determined. He let his muscles go slack and his feet floated down through the water to find the ground. He turned back to look inland. She was dressed all in flowing white garments with a wide brimmed hat of… burnt orange, he decided to stick with the poetic descriptions, her glossy black hair just visible under the hat and her eyes covered by sun glasses. Not an inch of her flawless alabaster skin was exposed to the sun. She looked spectacular and for a moment he just stood and stared. Behind her he could see one of the local policeman bouncing from foot to foot as though he found the sand too hot.

“Phryne, it’s not even ten o’clock, why are you up? And why have you abducted a member of the constabulary?”

Phryne Fisher, Lady Detective, stood open mouthed on the beach staring at his lean, tanned torso and desperately wishing she did not in fact have a local sergeant faffing around behind her because there was nothing she wanted more at this moment than to undertake a more private investigation of the man standing before her. One whole day she had been in Tenerife and still he had not even kissed her, in fact he had barely spoken to her. It was intolerable, especially if he was going to wander around looking that ridiculously delicious.

“Miss Fisher?” The man behind her was virtually begging now.

She shook her head, she didn’t know what had got into Jack but one of them needed to stay focussed, she sighed, tearing her eyes from the delights displayed so temptingly in front of her - unfortunately it seemed that meant her. “It’s fine Parkins, I’ll bring the Inspector to the station once he is attired in something slightly more appropriate.”

“But, Miss Fisher, the Ambassador will be here…”

“It’s alright Parkins, I’ll…” Phryne turned back to where Jack still stood in the water the sun glistening off the droplets of water running down his body, “...debrief him on the way over.”

Jack tilted his head, a ghost of a smile playing across his lips.

The policeman stomped off, he was less than happy but his request to Scotland Yard for assistance with the murder of a British diplomat had resulted in these two being sent to his aid, along with an assurance that they were the best available. She had flown in from London on her own small plane and he had travelled overland from Port Said, having been diverted off a ship travelling from Australia to the United Kingdom. So far, Parkins was unimpressed and confused. She seemed to be running the show and he? He seemed to think he was on holiday. Yes, Parkins was unhappy but he also didn’t have any options, he headed back up the beach.

Phryne waited until Parkins was out of sight before she started to scold Jack. “You have to stop sulking, we have work to do.”

He strolled back up the beach, water running down his legs in rivulets, his dark swimming trunks only accentuating his fine physical condition. “You had no right to drag me into this, Phryne.”

“Jack, a man is dead.” She tried to focus on that, rather than the cat like way Jack stretched back on his towel but it was possible she had never cared less about a murder victim than she did right now.

“Men die everyday, Phryne. I am not expected to take responsibility for investigating every death on the planet and you had no right to speak on my behalf with the Commissioner.”

Ah, she thought, I overstepped a boundary. She thought quickly, that was after all her specialty. “I’m sorry, you’re right.”

He opened one eye to look at her suspiciously.

She lowered herself till she was lying beside him, on her side, her head propped up on a hand the other between them picking up sand and letting it sift through her fingers. “I don’t have the right to speak on your behalf.”

He had both eyes open now and his head turned towards her, watching. Carefully.

“We are after all merely professional colleagues,” she said as she focussed entirely on the way the sand fell through her fingers.

He made a soft sound of disagreement. “I wouldn’t go that far, we are perhaps a little more than that.”

She stared at him, her eyes wide, her mouth slightly parted. “Are we, Jack? Because I had hoped that we would be a great deal more than that.”

He looked from her eyes to her mouth and back. Damn it, she was playing him.

“Don’t, Jack, I can see what you’re thinking, this isn’t about the case, this about whether I have the right to take on obligations in your name.” His brow furrowed in that way that made her want to kiss it smooth and she felt herself sway towards him but held herself back.

“I’m not following,” he admitted.

“If we’re going to be together, then it stands to reason that sometimes one of us will need to make decisions on behalf of the other. This time it happens to be me, next time it could be you. We have to learn to trust the other to do what is right, if we don’t our partnership will never work.”

“Partnership?”

This time she did let herself lean in, not close enough to touch him, but enough to clearly be in his space. “Yes, our professional,” she leaned in even more, her eyes focussed on the sheen of sweat that was forming on the bare skin of his shoulder under the power of the sun, “and personal partnership.”

“Personal?”

She grimaced internally, now who was playing who? Yes, she had been slightly presumptuous in signing him up for this but it had sounded perfect for their first case together as a couple, a mysterious death on an exotic location? She would have been mad not to snap it up. “Oh, come on, Jack” she let a hint of exasperation show in her voice, “Do I really have to spell it out?”

His eyes glinted. “Yes, I want to be crystal clear about what is happening here.”

He was asking a lot but then so had she on that airfield and she could be as brave as him, if she had to be. She emptied her hand of sand and placed it in the middle of his sun-kissed chest, her touch light but steady. “Jack Robinson, I asked you to come after me because I want us to be together and I believe that, as you came after me, you want that too. If I’ve misunderstood, if this isn’t what you want, you need to tell me now.” Well, she thought, he’d asked for clarity and that went both ways.

He didn’t speak, he just looked at her and for a terrible moment she thought that she might in fact have misunderstood - and then suddenly his hands were on her, pulling her down on top of him and his mouth was on hers and, as she entwined her fingers in his hair, she knew that everything was exactly as she had hoped. This island really was Paradise.


End file.
